Backing up Comic Pages

[DuneDeca]

I couldn't find a topic with a similar question, but how do you guys backup full resolution copies of your comic pages? When you want to someday do a kickstarter to print a comic series, it's come to my mind several times that I can't rely on my computer alone to hold them. Harddisk failures and viruses could wipe them out anytime.

Where do you guys store your pages? On a website? A cloud? physical drives?

[nessiefynn]

I save PSD files of all my pages to Google Drive. It works pretty well since they offer a lot of a lot of space.

[scythe]

I have them on the computer I work on, plus an external that I have set up in time machine so I can go back to specific dates and about once a week I take them in to my work computer and back everything up there as well. I haven't uploaded anything to GD or iCloud as of yet, mainly because upload speeds in my country are abysmal, but I will probably get around to it some day when I've got nothing else on.

I think as long as you don't have all your backups in one physical location, you're pretty well covered. Fire and theft happens.

[shazzbaa]

I keep them backed up on an external harddrive with time machine as well! Since my computer doesn't have room for high res files of all my pages at multiple stages (I only have a laptop), after I finish a chapter and put together the book for that chapter, I move those files onto two backup drives (in case one fails).

So altogether that's three external drives -- one that's a copy of my computer, one to store files I've pulled off my computer, and another to back up that second one.

On a previous comic, my computer failed out of the blue and left me with around 5 pages that I had to recreate from scratch. Since then I've been pretty good about backing everything up more consistently!

[scythe]

Yep, it only takes one disaster to get people onto the back-up bandwagon, and as with many things in life, it's often a lesson that must be learned the hard way.

[Shanny8]

I keep a file on a USB flash drive & on my external hard drive.

[efdvorsky]

I have a tiny USB drive with 64GB for the pages for now, but I'm also considering moving it to google drive or a dropbox for second storage e-e

[TheHerald]

It is because of this topic, I just uploaded all of my artwork on to google drivefor the first time.

[AnnaLandin]

I back my stuff up regularly to an external HD, along with the full-res copies I've got on my actual computer. I should probably get a second external HD, just in case.

I try to back up all of my things as regularly as possible - at least once every two months, preferably more often - and then I unplug the HD and hide it in a drawer somewhere, just so it isn't connected to anything that might harm it. I've lost a computer to a lightning strike before, so I unplug everything the moment I'm not actively using them.

[agentfink]

I work directly with dropbox. And every now and then I remember to back it up on my hard drive, then computer.
I typically export my pages and save them to goodle drive (so I can read thru it and share it with people on the go).

As for learning the lesson the hardway (raises hand) That was me. It was however, a problem with my hard drive. It failed and my main PSD file was somehow saved to my computer... but I lost all of my reference material and my digital life (at least 10 years of it). Took it to a recovery shop, where they recovered all my files, data, etc. Some were corrupted, but I didn't care so much-- as long as it wasn't my comic! Well worth the money. But now I have 3 places where I back up my work.

[MoonSquid]

I am thankful for this thread, as it has reminded me that I need to back up my recent pages. I'm using a flash drive for now, but will probably move onto an external hard drive when I get more pages and am not so lazy

[shaneoid77]

Hard Drive
Other Hard Drive
SD Card
CD
Google Drive
Burned in my memory

[Herofeeder]

W8 is Google drive able to store about 70 comics that contain about 80 mb per comic ? without buying more space?

[Shanny8]

@agentfink @AnnaLandin ran into a production issue with Ray Thunder where the main USB flash drive where I was saving the progress to became corrupted(at the mid point of the story); I almost had a fit, except that I was buds with the I.T. worker at my day job & dude had a program to recover all the info on the USB drive and transfer it to a new one...so from that point on I've been saving a backup copy on my external HD- which stays unplugged until I need to save material to it.

I have a Dropbox, but only use it for certain things. Due to $ constraints, I only have the free space size; I mainly use Dropbox to transfer files to Greko Printing.

I might start using Google Drive; I just have this fear that if I ever get disconnected from the net for an extremely long period of time that my files are out there on un-maintained cloud server.

[rodrigohernadez]

I use Dropbox and Google Drive, as well as on my pc, and am thinking about buying a external drive just for my pages... and maybe movies and stuff.

[indagold]

I use google drive and external hard drives. Do NOT use flashdrives, those things will die on you and wipe your work or burn out. They are unpredictable and I lost enough work on them. This is coming from someone who worked primarily in tech for a few years, they are absolute garbage.

[respheal]

Another recommendation for Google Drive here. Extra space isn't too expensive there if you need it, but I'm planning on eventually making another set of backups on Amazing glacier storage (which is even cheaper), with only the most recent chapters stored on Drive.

[apurviance]

I save PSD files of all my pages to Google Drive. It works pretty well since they offer a lot of a lot of space.

Same with mine: Google Drive. Each page is 50-100 MB, which is smaller than they used to be because I try to clean out and combine layers when I'm done. I need to put copies an external HD, too. More backups the better.

[agentfink]

I try to clean out and combine layers when I'm done.

I try to do this... but I just don't have it in me. I save another file completely and then merge.

@Shanny8 I had an alarming calmness when my hard drive crashed (lol). I mean, everything was gone! Old freelance, scribbles, photos, music, my old comic pages... but because I had my working file of my comic saved (miraculously) to the computer I was okay. Again-- loosing all that reference material is what killed me. Luckily, I also used google drive and some text reference were saved, but photo reference? Super hard to replace-- it takes hours of searching!

Man, when you can, upgrade your dropbox! My dropbox serves as a backup storage for all my digital work but it's also handy to transfer files to people (like you said). Most people I freelance with use dropbox (it makes things easier for me to just have an acct). I write off the expense each year.

[joannekwan]

I have 2 externals, one that I back up via time machine about every other day, the second is once a month. And now after going through this thread I've started uploading comic files on Google Drive as well.